Black holes might be intelligent

[fallbacktostone]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-16040655

Kepler 22-b: Earth-like planet confirmed

Astronomers have confirmed the existence of an Earth-like planet in the "habitable zone" around a star not unlike our own.

The planet, Kepler 22-b, lies about 600 light-years away and is about 2.4 times the size of Earth, and has a temperature of about 22C.

It is the closest confirmed planet yet to one like ours - an "Earth 2.0".

However, the team does not yet know if Kepler 22-b is made mostly of rock, gas or liquid.

During the conference at which the result was announced, the Kepler team said that it had spotted some 1,094 new candidate planets.

The Kepler space telescope was designed to look at a fixed swathe of the night sky, staring intently at about 150,000 stars. The telescope is sensitive enough to see when a planet passes in front of its host star, dimming the star's light by a minuscule amount.

Kepler identifies these slight changes in starlight as candidate planets, which are then confirmed by further observations by Kepler and other telescopes in orbit and on Earth.
Continue reading the main story
Kepler Space Telescope
Infographic (BBC)

Stares fixedly at a patch corresponding to 1/400th of the sky
Looks at more than 155,000 stars
Has so far found 2,326 candidate planets
Among them are 207 Earth-sized planets, 10 of which are in the "habitable zone" where liquid water can exist

William Borucki talks about Kepler

Kepler 22-b was one of 54 candidates reported by the Kepler team in February, and is just the first to be formally confirmed using other telescopes.

More of these "Earth 2.0" candidates are likely to be confirmed in the near future, though a redefinition of the habitable zone's boundaries has brought that number down to 48.

Kepler 22-b lies at a distance from its sun about 15% less than the distance from the Earth to the Sun, and its year takes about 290 days. However, its sun puts out about 25% less light, keeping the planet at its balmy temperature that would support the existence of liquid water.

The Kepler team had to wait for three passes of the planet before upping its status from "candidate" to "confirmed".

"Fortune smiled upon us with the detection of this planet," said William Borucki, Kepler principal investigator at Nasa's Ames Research Center.

"The first transit was captured just three days after we declared the spacecraft operationally ready. We witnessed the defining third transit over the 2010 holiday season."

The results were announced at the Kepler telescope's first science conference, alongside the staggering number of new candidate planets. The total number of candidates spotted by the telescope is now 2,326 - of which 207 are approximately Earth-sized.

In total, the results suggest that planets ranging from Earth-sized to about four times Earth's size - so-called "super-Earths" - may be more common than previously thought.

[fallbacktostone]

SPOILERSPOILER_SHOW

peeeeeeeeeeow............

tooth8888 18 hours ago

[soiled depends]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17117030



Astronomers have confirmed the existence of a new class of planet: a waterworld with a thick, steamy atmosphere.

The exoplanet GJ 1214b is a so-called "Super Earth" - bigger than our planet, but smaller than gas giants such as Jupiter.

Observations using the Hubble telescope now seem to confirm that a large fraction of its mass is water.

The planet's high temperatures suggest exotic materials might exist there.

"GJ 1214b is like no planet we know of," said lead author Zachory Berta, from the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

The planet was discovered in 2009 by ground-based telescopes. It is about 2.7 times the Earth's diameter, but weighs almost seven times as much. It orbits its red-dwarf star at a distance of just two million km, meaning temperatures on GJ 1214b probably reach above 200C.

In 2010, astronomers released measurements of its atmosphere. These suggested that GJ 1214b's atmosphere was probably made up of water, but there was another possibility - that the planet was covered in a haze, of the type that envelopes Saturn's moon Titan.
Hot ice

Mr Berta and his colleagues used the Hubble Space Telescope's wide-field camera to study the planet as it crossed in front of its star - a transit. During these transits, the star's light is filtered through the planet's atmosphere, giving clues to the mixture of gases present.

The researchers said their results are more consistent with a dense atmosphere of water vapour, than one with a haze.

Calculations of the planet's density also suggest that GJ 1214b has more water than Earth. This means the internal structure of this world would be very different to that of our own.

"The high temperatures and pressures would form exotic materials like 'hot ice' or 'superfluid water', substances that are completely alien to our everyday experience," said Dr Berta.

The planet's short distance from Earth makes it a likely candidate for follow-up observations with the James Webb Space Telescope, which may launch by the end of this decade.

The study has been accepted for publication by the Astrophysical Journal.

[fallbacktostone]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17117030



Astronomers have confirmed the existence of a new class of planet: a waterworld with a thick, steamy atmosphere.

SPOILERSPOILER_SHOW

The exoplanet GJ 1214b is a so-called "Super Earth" - bigger than our planet, but smaller than gas giants such as Jupiter.

Observations using the Hubble telescope now seem to confirm that a large fraction of its mass is water.

The planet's high temperatures suggest exotic materials might exist there.

"GJ 1214b is like no planet we know of," said lead author Zachory Berta, from the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

The planet was discovered in 2009 by ground-based telescopes. It is about 2.7 times the Earth's diameter, but weighs almost seven times as much. It orbits its red-dwarf star at a distance of just two million km, meaning temperatures on GJ 1214b probably reach above 200C.

In 2010, astronomers released measurements of its atmosphere. These suggested that GJ 1214b's atmosphere was probably made up of water, but there was another possibility - that the planet was covered in a haze, of the type that envelopes Saturn's moon Titan.
Hot ice

Mr Berta and his colleagues used the Hubble Space Telescope's wide-field camera to study the planet as it crossed in front of its star - a transit. During these transits, the star's light is filtered through the planet's atmosphere, giving clues to the mixture of gases present.

The researchers said their results are more consistent with a dense atmosphere of water vapour, than one with a haze.

Calculations of the planet's density also suggest that GJ 1214b has more water than Earth. This means the internal structure of this world would be very different to that of our own.

"The high temperatures and pressures would form exotic materials like 'hot ice' or 'superfluid water', substances that are completely alien to our everyday experience," said Dr Berta.

The planet's short distance from Earth makes it a likely candidate for follow-up observations with the James Webb Space Telescope, which may launch by the end of this decade.

The study has been accepted for publication by the Astrophysical Journal.

[Frickin' Slayer]

astronomy n astrology r related! they r both real!

[fallbacktostone]

[fallbacktostone]

[Necrometer]

RIP chad

[fallbacktostone]

[fallbacktostone]

RIP chad

[fallbacktostone]

[riley-o]

[fallbacktostone]

[E.E 3.0]

[Friendly Goatus]

space boner

[Black Jacques]

E.E 3.0 should recognize the terrestrial equivalent.

[Wehttam]

space boner

how long will it be until we get to see porn that was filmed in space? hmmmmm

[Necrometer]

goatus

I remember a story/comic in Heavy Metal where the pros & cons of zero-g sex were explicitly examined

[E.E 3.0]

E.E 3.0 should recognize the terrestrial equivalent.

what, shear zones on faults?

[fallbacktostone]

makes me sick when people claim to be inspired on behalf of 'the universe'

fuck you

[soiled depends]

blk hoes mite be inteljent, am i rite?

[fallbacktostone]

Is this thread about fallbacktostone???

I laughed out loud. I was gonna post pretty much the same thing.

calling all

ignore these two dudes and post the physical and astronomical phenomena that gets you most ripped and spiritual. unstoppable style..

[fallbacktostone]

[james]

space boner

how long will it be until we get to see porn that was filmed in space? hmmmmm

I am like 99% positive that at least one shot of a porno was filmed in low orbit, like one of those planes where you are weightless for 20 seconds or something. I think it was something high-profile from the late 90s. I don't remember details but I think it was Jenna Jameson or something???

[james]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_in_spa ... ntercourse

The soundtrack was produced by 3D from Massive Attack and Liam from The Prodigy

which is of course why I knew this....